71-81 Morningside Road, Edinburgh

71-81 Morningside Road is a four-storey Baronial corner tenement building designed by MacGibbon & Ross in 1889, featuring shops on the ground floor and two bowed angle towers. The structure is made of cream sandstone, with stugged ashlar and polished ashlar dressings. Notable architectural details include a moulded cill course for the first-floor windows, a moulded string course above the second floor, a cill band course for the third-floor windows, and bracketed cills for the second and third floors. The first-floor windows are architraved with pediments, except for those in the angle towers, while the third-floor windows break the eaves in pedimented dormer heads. The shops have plain shallow moulded pilasters, a continuous fascia, a cornice, and a blocking course.

On the west elevation facing Morningside Road, the building has five bays, excluding the corner tower. The shops at the ground floor are mostly unaltered, featuring recessed doorways (tiled at Nos 79 and 73) and slender timber mullions, with a dentilled cornice above the doors. The common stair doorway at No 75 has a rectangular fanlight and border glazing. The centre bay has small pedimented windows on the first and second floors. To the right of centre, there is a three-storey canted window that breaks the eaves at the third floor, topped with a pyramidal finial. The bays to the left of centre contain single windows, while the outer right bay has bipartite windows on the first and second floors and a single window on the third floor.

The north elevation, facing Newbattle Terrace, has three bays, including full-height bowed angle towers that break the eaves, each topped with finialled conical roofs. The right tower features three windows on each floor and an entrance to the corner shop in a chamfered centre at the ground floor, while the left tower has two windows on each floor. The broad centre bay has a shaped gable and a broad apex stack, with paired windows on all floors, and the third-floor windows have semi-circular pediments.

The east and south elevations are gabled with broad apex stacks; the east is harled, while the south is constructed of rubble with an ashlar cornice. The building features timber sash and case windows with plate glass glazing, although there are replacement windows on the first floor facing Morningside Road and the third floor. The shop windows at Nos 71 and 73 have ornamental vent openings. The roof is slate with metal flashings and includes three apex stacks and mutual stacks, along with moulded eaves gutters.

The interior was not seen in 1992.